This invention relates to a fabric-marking apparatus and more particularly to a fabric-marking apparatus which is characterized by passing a marking needle vertically through horizontally superposed fabric pieces at a prescribed point and impressing an ink mark on the same spot of all the superposed fabric pieces by one reciprocating movement of said marking needle.
Where pieces of clothing having the same dimensions are manufactured in large quantities, said pieces are horizontally superposed and cut in the same pattern. In this case, the above-mentioned marking apparatus is applied in marking spots being sewn on the suits such as pocket-fitting spots and button-fitting spots clearly to indicate their positions.
One of the marking processes adopted in the past consisted in passing a heated fine metal wire through superposed fabric pieces and marking them by scorching. Another process was to pass a thread-carrying needle through the spots on the superposed fabric pieces which were to be marked, remove the needle with the thread left fastened to the fabric pieces and taking them off one by one by cutting up the thread so as to cause the cut up portions thereof to remain on each piece.
However, the former conventional marking process had the drawbacks that the noticeable thermal cutting of fibers occured in coarse weave fabric such as knittings with the resultant raveling of woven portions, and a fine metal wire had to be heated frequently, leading to low operating efficiency. The latter prior art making process was accompanied with the shortcomings that a sewn marking thread was likely to come off, once it was loosened out of place, difficulties were presented in reconfirming the exact marked spot, and operating efficiency also decreased as in the former marking process.
Recently, therefore, other marking processes have been proposed which mark required spots of sewing by depositing small ink dots thereon. One of these recently proposed processes consists in connecting an ink tank to the upper end of an elongate needle and letting marking ink flow along the peripheral surface of a solid needle while it is passed through superposed fabric pieces or, in the case the needle is a hollow tubular type, conducting marking ink therethrough to discharge it from the forward end opening of the needle, thereby impressing an ink mark on all the superposed fabric pieces at the same time.
However, any of the recently proposed ink-marking processes had the disadvantages, for example, that ink was ejected in an nonuniform quantity during one reciprocating movement of the needle, ink pigment settled in the ink tank, failing to provide a desired distinct mark, and marking ink in the ink tank was insufficiently shut off from the atmosphere.